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Tie Dye Cake is a moist doctored-up vanilla cake with colored batter marbled together for a fun “tie dye” effect! It’s perfect for birthdays, potlucks and summer parties!
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If you’re looking for a cake that will WOW a group of kiddos at a birthday party, this amazing tie dye cake is it!!! And not only is it a fun cake full of vibrant colors, it’s also absolutely delicious!
Ingredients Needed
- Boxed Cake Mix – White cake mix is the best option; yellow can work as well, depending on the colors you’re using.
- All Purpose Flour
- Sugar
- Sour Cream – Use the full-fat sour cream for this.
- Butter – I use salted butter.
- Milk
- Eggs – I use large eggs (You can also opt to use 5 egg whites – this will keep the batter more white)
- Almond or Vanilla Extract Food Coloring – Liquid or gel food coloring will work
- Frosting – I like to use white frosting that I can color, but any frosting will work!
How to Make a Tie Dye Cake
This cake always looks fancy, but it’s super simple to make. It just takes a little extra time – and it’s totally worth it!
First, you’ll mix the cake mix, flour, sugar, sour cream, melted butter, milk, eggs and vanilla or almond extract. Stir well, making sure to scrape the batter from the sides of the bowl at least once.
Next, decide how many different colors you’d like and divide batter into small bowls. Add the food coloring to create the colors you’d like in the tie-dye cake.
Then scoop the batter into the pan! You can do this with spoons or cookie scoops. Either way, but sure to alternate colors so you get some of each color in every slice!
Now swirl the batter with a toothpick and bake! You’ll know the cake is done when a toothpick comes out clean (or with a few moist crumbs). Let the cake cool completely on a wire rack before frosting.
Tie Dye Layer Cakes and Tie Dye Cupcakes
As with most cake recipes, you can certainly use different pans to get different size cakes.
Round 2-Layer Cake: Use two 8-inch round cake pans lined with parchment paper and bake for about 35 minutes.
Round 3-Layer Cake: Use three 6-inch round cake pans lined with parchment paper and bake for about 35 minutes.
Cupcakes: This recipe will make 30-35 cupcakes and will bake for about 15 minutes.
Tie Dye Sheet Cake: Use a greased half-sheet pan and bake for 18-22 minutes.
Tie Dye Cake Frosting
There are so many different options here!! Homemade buttercream frosting is an easy, go-to for me! I included the recipe for that in the recipe card below. With a white buttercream, it’s easy to add color to it and spread or pipe the frosting on top.
Another one of my favorites, great for a 9×13-inch or sheet cake, is this whipped cream frosting!!
Color Ideas
- Christmas! Use white, red and green to make a Christmas Tie Dye Cake!
- School Spirit! Use your team colors (add white, too!) for a fun game-day treat!
- Unicorn Cake! Use light pastel colors and top with colorful sprinkles and edible glitter!
- Camo Cake! Use different camo colors for your favorite hunter or military personnel!
How to Store a Leftover Frosted Cake
A cake with buttercream can be left out at room temperature (well-covered) for up to three days. You can store it in the fridge for up to five days, but you’ll want to give it time to come to room temperature before enjoying (the texture is best at room temp!).
You can freeze extra cake, too. To do so, you can keep it in an airtight container whole OR cut it into individual slices and wrap each with plastic wrap. Then, place the slices in a freezer bag and freeze for another time!
Other Birthday Cake Recipes
Tie Dye Cake
Equipment
- One 9×13-inch pan
Ingredients
Cake
- 1 15.25-ounce box white cake mix
- 1 cup flour
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 cup sour cream
- 1/2 cup butter melted and cooled
- 1 cup milk
- 3 eggs
- 1 teaspoon almond or vanilla extract your choice!
- food coloring
Buttercream
- 1 cup butter
- 4 cups powdered sugar
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 3 tablespoons heavy whipping cream can also use half and half or milk
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325°F and grease a 9×13 inch pan with cooking spray; set aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, add the cake mix, flour and sugar and mix.
- Add the sour cream, butter, milk, eggs, and the almond or vanilla extract. Beat for 1 minute, scraping the sides down half-way through.
- Decide how many different colors you'd like in the cake and divide the batter into bowls (one for each color). I chose four – yellow, pink, blue and green.
- Add coloring to each of the bowls and mix until the color is evenly distributed.
- Spoon the batter into the prepared pan, alternating colors, then take a toothpick and swirl the batter as much or as little as you'd like. (I don't recommend going too overboard with the swirling as it'll cause the colors to mix too much and could turn…..brown) 🙂
- Bake for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick poked into the center of the cake comes out with a few moist crumbs or clean; let cool completely.
- To make the buttercream, place the butter in the bowl of a stand mixer and beat until smooth. Add powdered sugar, vanilla and 1 tablespoon heavy cream (or milk) and mix slowly until combined. Add additional cream as needed, mixing well between each addition.
- Spread the frosting on as-is or add food coloring to create whatever look you're going for!
I doubled the recipe and made the cake per the instructions, but the batter was watery and the baked cake was dense and shrunk quite significantly in the pan. I used the X2 button and didn’t notice that the quantity of cake box mix stayed the same at one. Is this why it didn’t work out?
Hey Joey –
Yes, you would’ve needed two boxes of cake mix. I’m so sorry that didn’t work for you!!!
Kelsey
Can this cake be doubled?
This cake turned out great! My 11yo daughter and her friends made it, and the cake baked up so evenly in a 9 x 13 glass dish. So colorful and pretty!
Is this using salted or unsalted butter?
I like using salted butter, but you can use unsalted butter if you prefer!
Clarification please! When I hit 2x button for the recipe, the cake mix doesn’t change. I even hit 3x and the cake mix didn’t change. Does that mean I just need one box of cake mix and just the added ingredients?
Hi Mel – just fixed it! Sorry for the confusion! ~Kelsey
This cake turned out so good I’m going to keep stuff on hand to make it more often. I didn’t do the buttercream online this time I had a different frosting and my tie dye came out a little different.
This cake turned out so good I’m going to keep stuff on hand to make it more often. I didn’t do the buttercream online this time I had a different frosting and my tie dye came out a little different. Could I maybe do this with a chocolate cake mix just maybe omitting the vanilla extract? Of course the chocolate cake won’t be tie-dyed but the frosting can be if you use white frosting.
Just wondering, can you use less sugar and sour cream. Then would you need less flour and butter also? If you don’t have enough sour cream can you add Greek yogurt? I want to make it tonight or tomorrow night. Party is Saturday
Hello! I’ve never tried this with less sugar or sour cream. However, you should be able to use the Greek yogurt in place of the remaining sour cream if you don’t have enough! 🙂 ~Kelsey